V. I.

Lenin

MATERIALISM and EMPIRIO-CRITICISM

Critical Comments on a Reactionary Philosophy ( Chapter Two: The Theory of Knowledge of Empirio-Criticism and of Dialectical Materialism. II )

4. Does Objective Truth Exist?

Bogdanov declares: “As I understand it, Marxism contains a
denial of the unconditional objectivity of any truth whatsoever,
the denial of all eternal truths” (Empirio-Monism, Bk. III, pp. iv-v). What is meant by
“ unconditional objectivity”? “Truth for all eternity” is “an objective truth in the
absolute meaning of the word,” says Bogdanov in the same
passage, and agrees to recognise “objective truth only within the limits of a given epoch.”

Two questions are obviously confused here: 1) Is there such a
thing as objective truth, that is, can human ideas have a
content that does not depend on a subject, that does not depend
either on a human being, or on humanity? 2) If so, can human
ideas, which give expression to objective truth, express it all
at one time, as a whole, unconditionally, absolutely, or only
approximately, relatively? This second question is a question of
the relation of absolute truth to relative truth.

Bogdanov replies to the second question clearly, explicitly and
definitely by rejecting even the slightest admission of absolute
truth and by accusing Engels of eclecticism for making such an admission. Of this discovery of eclecticism in Engels by
A. Bogdanov we shall speak separately later on. For the present
we shall confine ourselves to the first question, which
Bogdanov, without saying so explicitly, likewise answers in the
negative—for although it is possible to deny the element
of relativity in one or another human idea without denying the
existence of objective truth, it is impossible to deny absolute
truth without denying the existence of objective truth.

“. . . The criterion of objective truth,” writes
Bogdanov a little further on (p. ix), “in Beltov’s sense, does not exist truth is an ideological form, an
organising form of human experience. . . .”

Neither “Beltov’s sense”—for it is a question of one of the fundamental philosophical problems and
not of Beltov—nor the criterion of truth—which must be treated separately, without confounding it with the question
of whether objective truth exists —has anything to do with the case here. Bogdanov’s negative answer to the
latter question is clear: if truth is only an ideological form, then there can be no truth independent of the
subject, of humanity, for neither Bogdanov nor we know any other
ideology but human ideology. And Bogdanov’s negative answer emerges still more clearly from the second half of his
statement: if truth is a form of human experience, then there
can be no truth independent of humanity; there can be no
objective truth.

Bogdanov’s denial of objective truth is agnosticism and
subjectivism. The absurdity of this denial is evident even from
the single example of a scientific truth quoted above. Natural
science leaves no room for doubt that its assertion that the
earth existed prior to man is a truth. This is entirely
compatible with the materialist theory of knowledge: the
existence of the thing reflected independent of the reflector
(the independence of the external world from the mind) is a
fundamental tenet of materialism. The assertion made by science
that the earth existed prior to man is an objective truth. This
proposition of natural science is incompatible with the
philosophy of the Machians and with their doctrine of truth: if
truth is an organising form of human experience, then the
assertion that the earth exists outside human experience cannot be true.

But that is not all. If truth is only an organising form of
human experience, then the teachings, say, of Catholicism are
also true. For there is not the slightest doubt that Catholicism
is an “organising form of human experience.”
Bogdanov himself senses the crying falsity of his theory and it
is extremely interesting to watch how he attempts to extricate
himself from the swamp into which he has fallen.

“ The basis of objectivity,” we read in Book I of
Empirio-Monism, “must lie in the sphere of collective experience. We term those data of experience
objective which have the same vital meaning for us and for other
people, those data upon which not only we construct our
activities without contradiction, but upon which, we are
convinced, other people must also base themselves in order to
avoid contradiction. The objective character of the physical
world consists in the fact that it exists not for me personally,
but for everybody [that is not true! It exists independently of “everybody”!], and has a
definite meaning for everybody, the same, I am convinced, as for
me. The objectivity of the physical series is its universal significance ” (p. 25, Bogdanov’s
italics). “The objectivity of the physical bodies we encounter in our experience is in the last analysis established
by the mutual verification and coordination of the utterances of
various people. In general, the physical world is socially-co-ordinated, socially-harmonised, in a word,
socially-organised experience ” (p. 36, Bogdanov’s italics).

We shall not repeat that this is a fundamentally untrue,
idealist definition, that the physical world exists independently of humanity and of human experience, that the
physical world existed at a time when no “sociality” and no “organisation” of human experience was
possible, and so forth. We shall now on an exposure of the
Machian philosophy from another aspect, namely, that objectivity
is so defined that religious doctrines, ‘which undoubtedly
possess a “universal significance”, and so forth, come under the definition.

But listen to Bogdanov again:
“We remind the reader once more that
‘objective’ experience is by no means the same as
‘social’ experience.... Social experience is far from being altogether socially organised and always contains
various contradictions, so that certain of its parts do not
agree with others. Sprites and hobgoblins may exist in the
sphere of social experience of a given people or of a given
group of people-for example, the peasantry; but they need not
therefore be included under socially-organised or objective
experience, for they do not harmonise with the rest of collective experience and do not fit in with its organising
forms, for example, with the chain of causality” (45).

Of course it is very gratifying that Bogdanov himself “does not include” social experience in regard to
sprites and hobgoblins under objective experience. But this
well-meant amendment in the spirit of anti-fideism by no means
corrects the fundamental error of Bogdanov’s whole position. Bogdanov’s definition of objectivity and of the
physical world completely falls to the ground, since the
religious doctrine has “universal significance” to a greater degree than the scientific doctrine; the greater part of
mankind cling to the former doctrine to this day. Catholicism
has been “socially organised, harmonised and co-ordinated” by centuries of development; it
“fits in” with the “chain of causality” in the most indisputable manner; for religions
did not originate without cause, it is not by accident that they
retain their hold over the masses under modern conditions, and
it is quite “in the order of things” that professors of philosophy should adapt themselves to them. If this
undoubtedly universally significant and undoubtedly highly-organised religious social experience does “not
harmonise” with the “experience” of science, it is because there is a radical and fundamental difference
between the two, which Bogdanov obliterated when he rejected
objective truth. And however much Bogdanov tries to “correct” himself by saying that fideism, or
clericalism, does not harmonise with science, the undeniable
fact remains that Bogdanov’s denial of objective truth completely “harmonises” with fideism. Contemporary
fideism does not at all reject science; all it rejects is the
“exaggerated claims” of science, to wit, its claim to objective truth. If objective truth exists (as the
materialists think), if natural science, reflecting the outer
world in human “experience,” is alone capable of giving us objective truth, then all fideism is absolutely
refuted. But if there is no objective truth, if truth (including
scientific truth) is only an organising form of human experience, then this in itself is an admission of the
fundamental premise of clericalism, the door is thrown open for
it, and a place is cleared for the “organising forms” of religious experience.

The question arises, does this denial of objective truth belong
personally to Bogdanov, who refuses to own himself a Machian, or
does it follow from the fundamental teachings of Mach and
Avenarius? The latter is the only possible answer to the
question. If only sensation exists in the world (Avenarius in
1876), if bodies are complexes of sensations (Mach, in the
Analysis of Sensations), then we are obviously confronted with a philosophical subjectivism which inevitably
leads to the denial of objective truth. And if sensations are
called “elements” which in one connection give rise to the physical and in another to the psychical, this, as we
have seen, only confuses but does not reject the fundamental
point of departure of empirio-criticism. Avenarius and Mach
recognise sensations as the source of our knowledge. Consequently, they adopt the standpoint of empiricism
(all knowledge derives from experience) or sensationalism (all
knowledge derives from sensations). But this standpoint gives
rise to the difference between the fundamental philosophical
trends, idealism and materialism and does not eliminate that
difference, no matter in what “new” verbal garb (“elements”) you clothe it. Both the solipsist, that
is, the subjective idealist, and the materialist may regard
sensations as the source of our knowledge. Both Berkeley and
Diderot started from Locke. The first premise of the theory of
knowledge undoubtedly is that the sole source of our knowledge
is sensation. Having recognised the first premise, Mach confuses
the second important premise, i.e., regarding the objective
reality that is given to man in his sensations, or that forms
the source of man’s sensations. Starting from sensations,
one may follow the line of subjectivism, which leads to
solipsism (“bodies are complexes or combinations of sensations”), or the line of objectivism, which leads to materialism (sensations are images of objects, of the external
world). For the first point of view, i.e., agnosticism, or,
pushed a little further, subjective idealism, there can be no
objective truth. For the second point of view, i.e., materialism, the recognition of objective truth is
essential. This old philosophical question of the two trends, or
rather, of the two possible deductions from the premises of
empiricism and sensationalism, is not solved by Mach, it is not
eliminated or overcome by him, but is muddled by verbal
trickery with the word “element,” and the like. Bogdanov’s denial of objective truth is an
inevitable consequence of Machism as a whole, and not a
deviation from it.

Engels in his Ludwig Feuerbach calls Hume and Kant philosophers “who question the possibility of any
cognition, or at least of an exhaustive cognition, of the
world.” Engels, therefore, lays stress on what is common
both to Hume and Kant, and not on what divides them. Engels
states further that “what is decisive in the refutation of
this [Humean and Kantian] view has already been said by
Hegel” (4th Germ. ed., pp. 15–16). [1] In this connection it
seems to me not uninteresting to note that Hegel, declaring
materialism to be “a consistent system of empiricism,” wrote: “For empiricism the external
(das Ausserliche) in general is the truth, and if then a supersensible too be admitted, nevertheless knowledge of it
cannot occur (soll doch eine Erkenntnis desselben [d . h . des Uebersinnlichen] nicht stattfinden können) and one must keep exclusively to what belongs
to perception (das der Wahrnehmung Angehörige) . However, this principle in its
realisation (Durchführung) produced what was subsequently termed materialism. This materialism regards
matter, as such, as the truly objective (das wahrhaft Objektive) .”[Hegel, Encyklopädie der philosophischen Wissenschaften im Grundrisse [Encyclopaedia of the Philosophical Sciences in Outline], Werke,
VI. Band (1843), S. 83. Cf . S. 122.]

All knowledge comes from experience, from sensation, from
perception. That is true. But the question arises, does
objective reality “belong to perception,” i.e., is it the source of perception? If you answer yes, you are
a materialist. If you answer no, you are inconsistent and will
inevitably arrive at subjectivism, or agnosticism, irrespective of whether you deny the knowability of the thing-in-itself, or
the objectivity of time, space and causality (with Kant), or
whether you do not even permit the thought of a thing-in-itself
(with Hume). The inconsistency of your empiricism, of your
philosophy of experience, will in that case lie in the fact that
you deny the objective content of experience, the objective
truth of experimental knowledge.

Those who hold to the line of Kant or Hume (Mach and Avenarius
are among the latter, in so far as they are not pure
Berkeleians) call us, the materialists, “metaphysicians” because we recognise objective
reality which is given us in experience, because we recognise an
objective source of our sensations independent of man. We
materialists follow Engels in calling the Kantians and Humeans
agnostics, because they deny objective reality as the source of our sensations. Agnostic is a Greek word: a
in Greek means “no,” gnosis “knowledge.” The agnostic says: I do not know if there is an objective reality which is reflected,
imaged by our sensations; I declare there is no way of knowing
this (see the words of Engels above quoted setting forth the
position of the agnostic). Hence the denial of objective truth
by the agnostic, and the tolerance—the philistine, cowardly tolerance—of the dogmas regarding sprites,
hobgoblins, Catholic saints, and the like. Mach and Avenarius,
pretentiously resorting to a “new” terminology, a supposedly “new” point of view, repeat, in fact,
although in a confused and muddled way, the reply of the
agnostic: on the one hand, bodies are complexes of sensations
(pure subjectivism, pure Berkeleianism); on the other hand, if
we re-christen our sensations “elements,” we may think of them as existing independently of our sense-organs!

The Machians love to declaim that they are philosophers who
completely trust the evidence of our sense-organs, who regard
the world as actually being what it seems to us to be, full of
sounds, colours, etc., whereas to the materialists, they say,
the world is dead, devoid of sound and colour, and in its
reality different from what it seems to be, and so forth. Such
declamations, for example, are indulged in by J. Petzoldt, both
in his Introduction to the Philosophy of Pure Experience and in his World Problem from the Positivist Standpoint
(1906). Petzoldt is parroted by Mr. Victor Chernov, who waxes
enthusiastic over the “new” idea. But, in fact, the
Machians are subjectivists and agnostics, for they do not
sufficiently trust the evidence of our sense-organs and
are inconsistent in their sensationalism. They do not recognise
objective reality, independent of man, as the source of our
sensations. They do not regard sensations as a true copy of this
objective reality, thereby directly conflicting with natural
science and throwing the door open for fideism. On the contrary,
for the materialist the world is richer, livelier, more varied
than it actually seems, for with each step in the development of
science new aspects are discovered. For the materialist,
sensations are images of the sole and ultimate objective
reality, ultimate not in the sense that it has already been
explored to the end, but in the sense that there is not and
cannot be any other. This view irrevocably closes the door not
only to every species of fideism, but also to that professorial
scholasticism which, while not recognising an objective reality
as the source of our sensations, “deduces” the concept of the objective by means of such artificial verbal
constructions as universal significance, socially-organised, and
so on and so forth, and which is unable, and frequently
unwilling, to separate objective truth from belief in sprites
and hobgoblins.

The Machians contemptuously shrug their shoulders at the
“antiquated” views of the “dogmatists,” the materialists, who still cling to the concept
matter, which supposedly has been refuted by “recent science” and “recent
positivism.” We shall speak separately of the new theories
of physics on the structure of matter. But it is absolutely
unpardonable to confound, as the Machians do, any particular
theory of the structure of matter with the epistemological
category, to confound the problem of the new properties of new
aspects of matter (electrons, for example) with the old problem
of the theory of knowledge, with the problem of the sources of
our knowledge, the existence of objective truth, etc. We are
told that Mach “discovered the world-elements”: red, green, hard, soft, loud, long, etc. We ask, is a man given
objective reality when he sees something red or feels something
hard, etc., or not? This hoary philosophical query is confused
by Mach. If you hold that it is not given, you, together with
Mach, inevitably sink to subjectivism and agnosticism and
deservedly fall into the embrace of the immanentists, i.e., the
philosophical Menshikovs. If you hold that it is given, a
philosophical concept is needed for this objective reality, and
this concept has been worked out long, long ago. This concept is
matter . Matter is a philosophical category denoting the
objective reality which is given to man by his sensations, and
which is copied, photographed and reflected by our sensations,
while existing independently of them. Therefore, to say that
such a concept can become “antiquated” is childish talk, a senseless repetition of the arguments
of fashionable reactionary philosophy. Could the struggle between materialism and idealism, the struggle between
the tendencies or lines of Plato and Democritus in philosophy,
the struggle between religion and science, the denial of
objective truth and its assertion, the struggle between the
adherents of supersensible knowledge and its adversaries have
become antiquated during the two thousand years of the development of philosophy?

Acceptance or rejection of the concept matter is a question of
the confidence man places in the evidence of his sense-organs, a
question of the source of our knowledge, a question which has
been asked and debated from the very inception of philosophy,
which may be disguised in a thousand different garbs by
professorial clowns, but which can no more become antiquated
than the question whether the source of human knowledge is sight
and touch, healing and smell. To regard our sensations as images
of the external world, to recognise objective truth, to hold the
materialist theory of knowledge—these are all one and the
same thing. To illustrate this, I shall only quote from
Feuerbach and from two textbooks of philosophy, in order that
the reader may judge how elementary this question is.

“ How banal,” wrote Feuerbach, “to deny that sensation is the evangel, the gospel (Verkündung)
of an objective saviour.”[Feuerbach, Sämtliche Werke, X. Band, 1866, S. 194-95.] A strange, a preposterous
terminology, as you see, but a perfectly clear philosophical
line: sensation reveals objective truth to man. “My sensation is subjective, but its foundation [or
ground— Grund] is objective” (S. 195). Compare this with the quotation given above where
Feuerbach says that materialism starts from the perceptual world
as an ultimate (ausgemachte) objective truth.

Sensationalism, we read in Franck’s dictionary of philosophy,[ Dictionnaire des sciences philosophiques [Dictionary of the Philosophical Sciences], Paris, 1875.]
is a doctrine which deduces all our ideas “from the experience of sense-organs, reducing all knowledge to
sensations.” There is subjective sensationalism (scepticism and Berkeleianism), moral sensationalism
(Epicureanism), [2] and objective sensationalism. “Objective sensationalism is nothing but
materialism, for matter or bodies are, in the opinion of the
materialists, the only objects that can affect our senses
(atteindre nos sens) .”

“ If sensationalism,” says Schwegler in his history of philosophy,[Dr. Albert Schwegler, Geschichte der Philosophie im Umriss [Outline History of Philosophy],
15-te Aufl., S. 194.] “asserted that truth or being can be
apprehended exclusively by means of the senses, one had only
[Schwegler is speaking of philosophy at the end of the eighteenth century in France] to formulate this proposition
objectively and one had the thesis of materialism: only the
perceptual exists; there is no other being save material
being.”

These elementary truths, which have managed to find their way
even into the textbooks, have been forgotten by our Machians.

---
Notes:
[1]
See
F. Engels, Luduwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy (K. Marx and F. Engels, Selected Works,
Volume II, Moscow, 1958, p. 371).

[2]
Scepticism —a philosophical trend that casts doubt on the possibility of knowing objective reality. It arose in
ancient Greece as early as the 4th to 3rd centuries
B. C. (Pyrrho, Aenesidemus, Sextus Empiricus). The adherents of
ancient scepticism drew agnostic conclusions from the premises
of sensationalism, Making the subjectivity of sensation into an
absolute, the sceptics insisted on the need to refrain from any
definite judgments about things. They considered that ,man
cannot go beyond his sensations and determine their truth.

During the period of the Renaissance, the French philosophers
Michel Montaigne, Pierre Charron and Pierre Bayle made use of
scepticism for combating medieval scholasticism and the Church.

In the eighteenth century scepticism was revived in the
agnosticism of I-fume an(l Kant, and an attempt to modernise
ancient scepticism was made by Gottlieb Schulze (Aenesideinus). The arguments of scepticism were used by the
Machists, neo-Kantians and other idealist philosophical schools
from the middle of the nineteenth to the beginning of the
twentieth century.

Epicureanism the doctrine of the ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus of the 4th to 3rd centuries B. C. and his
successors. The aim of philosophy, according to this doctrine,
was man’s happiness; freeing him from suffering and enabling him
to attain a state of bliss. It taught that philosophy was called
upon to over come obstacles to happiness: the fear of death due
to ignorance of the laws of nature and giving rise therefore to
belief in super natural, divine forces.

As regards the theory of knowledge, Epicurus was a sensationalist. He supposed that very subtle images proceed from
things and penetrate the human soul through the sense-organs. Conceptions of things are formed on the basis of
the sensuous perceptions of the soul, in which memory preserves
only the general features of images. Epicurus regarded sense-perceptions themselves as the criterion of truth, and he
considered that the source of errors lay in the accidental
character of individual sensations or in the over-hasty
formation of judgments.

The idealists, who distorted the teaching of this great
materialist of ancient Greece, made more attacks on Epicureanism
than on the other philosophical theories of antiquity.

In the definition of sensationalism quoted by Lenin, Franck
rightly regards Epicureanism as a variety of it, but he draws an
incorrect distinction between Epicureanism and objective
materialist sensationalism.